Pulled over by a Highway Patrol while fishing

LOL, thought I had heard of everything, until me, my brother, my son and grandson Nate were fishing on a lake in Oklahoma.

We were moving spots on Keystone lake, and we see this boat coming on fast my brother was driving and I was in the forward seat watching the fish finder, and my brother said thats a highway patrol. Sure enough, it was, well we pulled along side the boat, and the patrolman had a reporter from a Tulsa paper in there with him.

His first words to my brother was, are you the one driving this boat? My brother had not left the seat.

Now I can testy when it comes to my fishing time. When I come home from after being away for 6 months at a time, I dont want to be hassled. I usually only get one day to fish, if I am lucky. I came very close to telling him, "No Nate (who is 6) was but we saw you coming, and he had a little to much beer to drink, so my brother took over when we saw you coming", but I didnt.

I know these guy are doing a job, but it is really frusterating to be checked, check the boat, check the registration, check the number of life vests, they even told us we had the numbering wrong on our boat, we should have spaces inbetween them. The boat is a 2004, and my brother has been stopped on lakes before, no one said anything about those. I can see if we were all drunk or doing something dangerous, but we were idling thru a spot looking for fish. I wonder if he would have even bother to stop us if he didnt have the newspaper writer on board?

Back when I was a kid one of the neighbor kids dad was conservation officer. One day he pulled over a guy drving a car and gave him a reckless driving warning.
Those guys have more authority than you think.
have a good one
just

Hope you still had a good day on the water! Can I give you another spin on it?
Newspaper brings attention, and the story with a picture or two might make the paper. Now perhaps there was a boater or two, with no desire to fish or relax, just a need to drink too much & act up on ther water. He may be coerced into taking his party to some other lake (river, pond, whatever) because of the advertised "police presence" that is there. Or maybe even just plan to tone down the party, not drink too much, not be too loud, etc etc
Police officer looks like the protector he is, not just hassling/profiling, but checking all.
While it is inconvenient, boater safety is more than just "enough life jackets."
Checks of license, boat registration, etc give the officer a few moments to observe what/whom he/she is dealing with.
As a mom, who has her child on the water occasionally, I welcome the intrusion. The officer may be helping keep the "hoodlum" element away from me and mine.
Just a different spin, nothing more :roll_eyes:

I dont mind getting checked. They are doing their job. Sometimes the could present their selves a little different or have a different attuide. But think of some of the Idiots that they do come across. If a person is leagle just mark it up to the man doing his job. Treat them with the respect that he deservese and that you want to be treated with.

In Oklahoma, the Lake Patrol are members of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, assigned to temporary duties to patrol the lakes and water ways. I would imagine you got a slightly more thorough inspection due to the reporter's presence. It don't upset me to be checked as I figure I give them that right when I go on public waters. What does somewhat rankle me, is the knowledge that in Oklahoma there are slightly less than 800 members of the highway patrol, and slightly more than 350 of them patrol the highways. The rest are drug interdiction teams, weights and measures and officers (Lt's and captains) who do nothing to enforce the highway laws. Talk about a top heavy organization. sigh

More than likely, the officer was put in a situation where the local paper was doing a story on safety on the water and the officers that are keeping the waters safe. You happened to be the one he picked because you wouldn't get a bad report while someone from the paper was on board taking notes. You were the perfect person to pull over on the water with a reporter on board cause you were driving safely, had a child on board(which probably meant you weren't drinking) and the members on board looked family oriented. If I were the marine patrol and got stuck with a reporting wanting to do a story I would pull over what looked to me as the person following the law so the story would have a positive influence instead of a report that said patrolman so and so pulled over 6 teenagers driving at 55mph on the water with blood alcohol levels of xyz. You getting pulled over insured that the patrolman would give the reporter a good look at what is involved when they pull someone over but didn't expose the reported to anything negative.

That is my take on it. I know it is frustrating when you aren't doing anything wrong and seem to be singled out but I really think you were because you were doing things right.

I think what set bad with me is, we were following all the rules, my grandson was in his life jacket. We werent drinking. There were other boats on the water, which he didnt stop. They were pleasure boats. Hey I am all for saftey, and I really dont mind being stopped, but I dont want to be the only one on the lake. After he checked me he kept right on going past the other boats.

I was in the Coast Guard for 24 years. Those "safety inspections" are just trojan horses to get on the vessel and search it. That's right, warrantless searches. I didn't have any problem with that when there was probable cause to go with it, but applying it to citizens obeying the law and minding their own business is something else. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.

We had one stop us at Canton Lake 7 or 8 years ago and he was a horse
behind. Had one heck of a smart mouth on him. Left a really bad taste in our mouth and kinda ruined every body's day. While he was checking everything he drifted over into the bank with his boat and got stuck in the mud and wanted one of us to get out and push him out far enough where he could get going again. I finally did push him out since I had my swimming suit on but we did visit about his attitude a little before I did. He sure didn't want to get his uniform wet.

over on beaver lake in arkansas we have the lake patrol , coast guard auxillary and the benton county sherrifs dept. patrolling the lake. 4 years ago on the 4th of july i watched a high speed pursuit on the water. the benton county sherrifs boat was chaseing this drunk around the lake wide open with blue lights sirens and the whole 9 yds. i have often wondered where the guy that was running thought he was gonna go to evade capture.

I was in the Coast Guard for 24 years. Those "safety inspections" are just trojan horses to get on the vessel and search it. That's right, warrantless searches. I didn't have any problem with that when there was probable cause to go with it, but applying it to citizens obeying the law and minding their own business is something else. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.